Why doesn't songbird use variables when translating to another language?

When translating to another language, in my case, Portuguese, we should translate the English strings, keeping the variables, but when using that language add on, Songbird should say, "... Songbird must be restarted", but it instead says, "... &brandShortName; must be restarted". The &brandShortName; variable is the one used by default, but when translating the program doesn't recognize it as a variable but instead it recognizes it as part of the string.
The problem can be solved by not using that variable, but if Songbird changes name, like firefox did by changing from firebird, then the translation add on will be corrupted.